Moon Knight: From the Dead Review (Unread 028)

I’m a huge fan of Warren Ellis. He’s undoubtedly one of the comic book greats. I love his writing for many reasons but I’d like to focus on just a few in this review because they tie into what made Moon Knight: From the Dead such a fantastic comic.

Warren Ellis is very skilled at revitalization old properties. He’s also good at taking familiar concepts or characters and giving them new life. There are other skilled creators from Ellis’s generation that are also good at this, but it doesn’t take away from his ability to do it and to do it well. A few examples of this would be the work he’s done with Doom 2099, Stormwatch and The Authority, and the work he’s done on the X-men franchise. He’s also had quite a bit of success doing this in Marvel’s Ultimate line of comics with titles such as the Ultimate Galactus Trilogy, Iron Man, Ultimate Human, and Ultimate Fantastic Four.  

It’s no surprise then that he revitalizes Moon Knight in a subtle yet meaningful way. It seems so simple and simplicity is another characteristic of some (not all) of Ellis’s work. All he does it boil down Moon Knight to a few core elements, to his core essence. He doesn’t needlessly revise the characters origins or give him an unnecessary cast of secondary characters to support the main character. He doesn’t drag it out into a bloated decompressed character revamp 12 issue maxi series either. He focuses on a few ideas, the strongest ideas, and structures the story around that to heighten the impact of the character and the story. He doesn’t overuse his ideas nor does he throw in more ideas than is necessary or functional. He avoids diluting the narrative in exchange for potency. This leads us into the second reason why he is such a great writer.

Realism, Hope and Optimism in Warren Ellis’s Ocean: A Review

Warren Ellis is the best writer of science fiction stories in all of comics. There, I said it. I mean it too. His comics are regularly intelligent and well-paced. He’s very skilled at taking big and sometimes complicated ideas and simplifying them enough to make them easily digestible. He manages to do this (exactly how, I don’t know) without dumbing it down or changing the idea to fit the story he’s trying to tell. Instead, he uses scientific ideas as the starting point for his stories and builds the rest around it. His entire comic book writing career has dealt with scientific ideas whether or not he’s writing a strictly science fictional story. This style of writing is often paired with a large dose of realism all of which gives his writing a very specific flair.

In order to understand Ellis’s approach to writing science I need to give a quick overview of two important movements in comic books: revisionism and reconstructionism. The 1980s saw the emergence of several highly regarded mature comic book works such as The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. Their impact on the comic book industry was a nearly immediate attempt to recapture the same feel of those comics but it was done so by creative teams that lacked the crucial understanding of those influential works. Comic books of the early 1990s were plagued with what is now known as the “grim ‘n’ gritty” aesthetic. Writers and artists would try to emulate the harsh realisms and brutality comics such as Watchmen only to end up with senseless violent and poorly thought-out comics of their own.

What made those critically acclaimed mid-to-late 1980s comics so good was the use of realism in telling in storytelling. By adding social, political and real-world physics to comics the revisionist movement was born. This use of intelligent storytelling was often combined with experimental narrative techniques. The Dark Knight Returns used a 16-panel grid as the basis of every page while Watchmen did the same with a 9-panel grid. Both works also considered the realistic implications of having superheroes. In The Dark Knight Returns this is mostly apparent in Frank Miller’s use of news media while in Watchmen Alan Moore took superheroes as the foundation for his world building of an alternate America. Taking fanciful ideas and treating them with the utmost seriousness and concern for verisimilitude was one of the driving forces behind such revisionist works.

After the many failed attempts at recreating revisionist comics a second movement was created with the release of Marvels by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross in 1994. This movement, called reconstructionism, had the intent of recapturing the wonder and awe of superhero comics which used to inspire them as young readers. This wasn’t just a return to form for superhero comics. Instead, it was a counter movement to revisionism since it kept the intelligence of revisionist works while imbuing them with a more hopeful tone. I must point out that revisionist works like Marvels and Busiek’s later series Astro City weren’t simply about having fun with superhero comics. They had emotionally potent and often literary stories to tell but they did not shy away from using highly fictitious elements (superheroes and pseudo-science, primarily) in their stories. They were not concerned with the often stark portrayal of reality that was often found in revisionist comics.

You might be wondering what any of this has to do with Warren Ellis. His comic book writing career began in 1990. By 1995 he wrote a companion comic to Marvels called Ruins where he presented highly revisionist and scientifically accurate (at least in theory, we do not have real superheroes to provide any additional prove) depictions of various super-powered beings in the Marvel Universe. He presented Invisible Woman as being blind when using her invisibility powers since her eyes new longer interact with light correctly (I apologize for being vague or inaccurate on this point, it’s been a while since I read Ruins). Wolverine is the victim of adamantium poisonings, the Hulk is essentially a walking tumour, etc. Rising to fame as an important and skilled comics writer during the nineties would result in Ellis’s entire career dealing with aspect of both revisionism and reconstructionism in his work.

Warren Ellis used a realistic approach in his science fiction writing which often brings him to deal with revisionist motifs. Yet, Ellis is also quite capable of including reconstructionist ideals in his stories, too. A lot of his superhero comics are characterized by his realistic approach to science in his stories while also employing a sense of wonder and awe to the science and his storytelling. A lot of that has to do with the tone of a specific story. Ellis is as capable of writing a revisionist work at the same time that he is writing something purely reconstructionist. He’s a an oddity amongst comic book writers since he’s written series that combines the style and content of both movements into under one title, with little or no narrative and storytelling conflict. Planetary is probably the best example of that.

Both these movement are tied to superhero comics (for the most part) it’s difficult to apply them directly to his non-superhero work. Most of his non-superhero work is science fiction and since a lot of superhero comics are a sub-genre of science fiction you can see echoes of revisionism and reconstructionism in his science fiction comics.

Warren Ellis deals with hard sciences and near future science fiction. Some of the very first lines in his Wikipedia page say that he “is well known for sociocultural commentary, both through his online presence and through his writing, which covers transhumanist themes (most notably nanotechnology, cryonics, mind transfer, and human enhancement).” Sometimes I think his mind lives in the near future while he body occupies the same time and space as the rest of us which allows him to write so convincingly and intelligently about complex ideas that have their roots in the sciences (social, technological and natural).

Those are some of the thoughts that float in my head each time I read a comic by Ellis. This is what I had in the back of my head when I recently reread Ocean, a single volume science fiction story by Ellis with art by Chris Sprouse and Karl Story.

Ocean’s plot is pretty straightforward. Set 100 years in the future, United Nations Weapons Inspector Nathan Kane travels to a space station named Cold Harbor in rotation around Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. A significant yet highly secretive discovery has been made in Europa’s ocean. A very large number of coffins are submerged under the planet’s icy surface, along with weapons that are capable of destroying planets. Kane’s been asked to investigate and, if need be, take action to ensure they’re not put into use by individuals with nefarious goals. It would have been a simple mission if the Doors corporation didn’t also have a station in orbit to make things complicated, and highly dangerous, for Kane and the scientists of Cold Harbor.

What makes Ocean an engaging and worthwhile read isn’t the plot. That’s actually rather run-of-the-mill. What’s truly wonderful is the tone which conveys a great sense of respect for other cultures, humanity’s future and the scientific ideas that Ellis is playing with. A big part of the tone is established by the clean and very precise art of Chris Sprouse. He’s aided by regular contributor Karl Story who handles the ink. Ellis’s distinct pacing allows Sprouse’s page layouts to be very cinematic. He also gives the interiors of the space ships and space stations are surprisingly open, almost breezy, feel.

The rest of the tone is the result of Ellis’s writing choices. Consider his charactesr. Nathan Kane, the lead protagonist, is a black man. Something we don’t often see in comics today, let alone ten years ago. Three quarters of the crew at Cold Harbor’s crew are women, professionals in their field of study. They’re skilled and intelligent but they’re also quirky (without being stereotypical) and unique. All five main characters accept and respect the people with whom they work. This isn’t the focus of the story but it anchors it and gives the story weight and meaning. Ellis builds his story starting with the science, continuing with characters and leading to the story. That’s the formula to a lot of his work. He does this while celebrating a great deal of positive things and without ever making it a sickly sweet read. We have his English wit to thank for that, I’m sure as the dialogue is filled with snark and sarcasm.

Ellis doesn’t shy away from showing you a potential future where conglomerates have delved deeper into their invasions of our individual rights and privacy for profit. He won’t hesitate to craft a story in which humanity’s roots are discovered to be a long-dormant humanoid species from the same solar system that lived to kill and destroy. In essence, he doesn’t pull his punches. He will show you the worst of mankind in most of his work but this is counter-balanced with his compulsion to show you the best of mankind. He’s cautionary as well as being hopeful. It’s all incredibly humanistic. Even the figurehead of the Doors corporation in Ocean is sympathetic in his own way. He’s delusional, sadistic and hysterical, absolutely, but also a sad and pitiful man that you’re made to understand is only trying to make the best of a very, very situation. 

It’s clear that there are some revisionist elements in Ocean, particularly the realism of the technology of space flight. The science also includes the rather interesting idea of guns designed to be safely used (for the shooter, not for the intended target) in a space station or ship. The action piece in the last issue works wonders with artificial gravity and atmospherics within the station. Despite all of this, I would argue that Oceans has more in common with reconstructionism because of the comic book’s overall tone. It’s inherently optimistic. Certainly the Doors company is a frightful look into our potential future but the organization is defeated by a small group of five intelligent individuals. The comic remains hopeful and positive in face of the clearly evil and equally realistic villains (one group of villains acts more as an allegory of our past errors than as actual murder-obsessed ancestors to humanity) of the book.

The book’s main theme is to supplant positive aspects of humanity over negative ones. The Doors manager wants to harness the destructive power of the alien technology for personal gain while the scientists want to understand along with Kane who wants to understand it and make judgement on the value or lack of value to humanity. The Doors corporation wants to continue mistreating humans, even stripping individuals of autonomy in order to attain higher profit margins while Kane wants to learn from the errors of our parents and ancestors in order to build a better future for all. While Doors chooses attempts to mean their goals by crushing individuals freedoms Kane succeeds in his efforts by celebrating individual differences and unique abilities of the individuals that surround him. That, ultimately, is what makes this a hopeful story. Ellis shows a clear love and respect for science and both possibilities of developing it (negative and positive) but he suggests that intelligent, educated and determined individuals will find a way to overcome any negative aspects of future scientific discoveries.

Ocean is one of Ellis’s lesser works, that’s not really up for debate. Yet it’s still quite satisfying because it fits so nicely within Ellis’s style as a writer and deals with a fair amount of his pet themes. It’s not essentially reading for people starting to discover his body of work but it does play a role in emphasising the kind of writer Ellis is and the kind of comics he writes. It’s not just for the Ellis completest but for any comic reader that enjoys comics that are made up of equal part action and thought provoking storytelling.  

Orbiter by Warren Ellis review

I really like Warren Ellis as a writer. I’m not his biggest fan but his name is enough to draw me to a project. Some of the reasons I like Ellis so much is that he likes big ideas but in most cases he doesn’t let character or story suffer because of it. He’s also produced work with extremely talented artists throughout his career and when your career consists mostly of comic books, that’s a good thing because visuals matter a lot. Another reason I like Ellis is that he’s gender and race neutral. That’s a pretty big deal, it’s more important than some people think. What I mean by gender neutral is that he doesn’t go out of his way to make every single character a woman but woman are present in most if not all of his work in roles that matter. They’re not limited to being background characters that don’t speak or aren’t otherwise involved in the narrative. Unlike other writers, Ellis doesn’t forcefully integrate women or racial minorities in his work. He’s aware that he’s using a character that isn’t the statistical average human male and so he doesn’t write them as such. He also avoids writing his female and racial characters as stereotypes. It might not seem important, but these elements are present in Warren Ellis and Colleen Doran’s original graphic novel Orbiter.

Orbiter, like a lot of really good science fiction, begins with real world ideas and scientific facts and uses them to provide us with interesting ideas. Good science fiction is often speculative in nature and it’s concerned with social, political, economic issues. With Orbiter, Ellis uses the lost wonder of his childhood growing up during the Space Race along with the retrospective nature and overly cautionary administration of human spaceflight exploration, specifically the funding and administration of NASA, as the starting point of his story. Ten years ago, Space Shuttle Venture blasted off and disappeared. The shuttle and its crew where never heard of or seen again. Because of the incident, the American Space Shuttle program ended and Kennedy Space Centre has deteriorated and become a shanty town. On a day like any other, the thought-to-be-lost Venture returns home and crashes at KSC. Experts are brought in to study the shuttle and figure out where it went, how it got them and how it got back.

The rest of the story is a science fiction procedure grounded in real world ideas. Ellis has three experts, a psychiatrist, a biologist and an aerospace engineer, study the shuttle and the sole survivor crew member. Along the way he argues why crewed space flight is crucial to the success of space exploration. There are things that men and women can experience that robots just can’t, no matter how sophisticated they are. More importantly, you need humans in order to do experiments. Try having a robot do what Canadian astronaut Chris Hatfield did on the International Space Station last year. His experiments where simple but they helped to clearly demonstrate the way zero gravity can affect everyday items. That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the things we can learn from space exploration and study.

I mentioned that Ellis is usually pretty good at keeping the human element in his stories present in his stories along with big ideas. He does so here, too. The four main characters all have their reasons to be concerned with the Venture. For one, it’s as simple as being fascinated with space and curious to learn how it affects animal and vegetable biology. For the pilot of the Venture it’s a matter of exploring and discovering the unknown. Space exploration is also extremely important to the engineer who only wants to help others reach space and come back in the best way possible. He wants to create things that will allow man to do the impossible. I particularly like the character of Anna Bracken, the psychiatrist who doesn’t have any interest to physically go to space but she’s devoted to the idea of helping others understand their own experiences.

Ellis’s comics can sometimes feel like essays. It’s true. If you don’t believe me you only need to read Crécy or Supergod. Better yet, find a copy of Orbiter and give that a read. I say this because Ellis’s writer can sometimes feel much more argumentative than other fiction. In Orbiter, Ellis and Doran argue for the importance of crewed spaceflight. As such, the comic succeeds but it flounders a bit as a narrative.  Part of the problem with the narrative is that everything goes so smoothly. This comic is, in essence, a science fiction mystery and boy, what a mystery it is! The problem is that the specialists from very different fields all work seamlessly together and solve the mystery based on well informed guesses. They’re still guesses though and they guess right every single time.

I don’t get too bothered by that because the point of Orbiter isn’t to provide a great narrative. The point is to inspire. Ellis is trying to inspire pride and joy in the idea of manned space exploration while (unhappily) predicting the end of the manned space flight. I was impressed by Orbiter because the creators also managed to throw in a heavy dose of science fiction while making all three elements, inspirational story, science fiction ideas and prediction all work together. As a species, man has the incredible potential to do the seemingly impossible but in order for us to do the impossible; we have to actually do it. We can’t use technology as a crutch or as a replacement of man in space. That will provide some answer but robotic exploration is stale and uninspired and ultimately not worth as much as real life experienced individuals doing what they do best which in this case happens to be exploring, learning and discovering.

Miscellaneous reviews 02

Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus volume 1

Jack Kirby is great. I don’t love everything he does but when it comes to dynamic art, he takes the cake. The Fourth World is probably his masterpiece and these handy omnibus volumes give me a chance to read it for the first time. Best of all, the whole thing is in chronological order which is a big deal for me as I find that’s the best way to read any series of books or comics. The Fourth World is a story told with fourth by monthly titles, Superman’s Pal: Jimmy Olsen, New Gods, Mister Miracle and Forever People. Unfortunately, not all of the titles are as worthwhile as the others. Jimmy Olsen, despite being filled with excellent ideas, interesting settings and some oddball characters, just doesn’t work for me. It’s not very good.

Thankfully the rest of the titles are better, Mister Miracle is my favourite in this first volume. The journey from Scott Free to Mister Miracle is a joy to experience. I love every single escape act that happen in the first three issues. New Gods is also an excellent title. It’s Jack Kirby at his most mythic and grandiose. I don’t think these stories would work in any other medium and Kirby proves that time and time again by filling his comics with big ideas, page after page. It allows for a quick, and fascinating, read for those who like to read their comics that way. The real strength of these comics though is that the big ideas also coalesce into a larger narrative in a satisfying way. There is plenty here to make the more pensive readers stop and reflect at the wonders of the Fourth World.  

Secret Avengers: Run the Mission, Don’t get Seen, Save the World by Warren Ellis

Warren Ellis is one of the best writers when it comes to single issue stories. Particularly when it comes to writing single issue stories that also built a larger narrative while also providing the reader with interesting character interactions. He’s done several series that shy away from excessively long and decompressed multi-issue story arcs such as Fell, Global Frequency and Planetary are just a few examples. Even some of his longer series had shorter story arcs. The Authority and Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. are built on a three issues arc structure. Transmetropolitan was built on a combination of three issue arcs followed by three single issue stories. That particular series lasted for 60 issues and it’s the most representative of Ellis’s style and content out of his entire body of work.

With Secret Avengers: Run the Mission, Don’t get Seen, Save the World, Ellis tells stories similar in concept and execution of the stories in Global Frequency but with a superhero twist. The trade paperback contains six stories that mix together the super spy and science fiction genres together into an effective mix (super spy stories often come with a nice helping of science fiction anyway). Each issue is drawn by a different artist starting with Jamie McKelvie and continuing (in order) with Kev Walker, David Aja, Michael Lark, Alex Maleev and Stuart Immonen. It’s interesting to see how Ellis seems to write a story that will suit the artist he’s working with. The use of a different artist with each new issue makes this series seems even more like a superhero version of Global Frequency which is a good thing because it’s one of my favourite Warren Ellis series. I don’t think Secret Avengers is as good a collection because we’re so used to seeing these characters do extraordinary things that it’s difficult to put them in interesting and original situations and have the story begin and end in 22 pages. Ellis and the rotating team of artists do an excellent job telling engaging stories with overly familiar characters and that’s an impressive feat in the climate of today’s comic book industry. The fact that most of the stories deal with moral dilemmas of various kinds is just the icing on top of the cake, proving once again that Ellis, even while doing work-for-hire work on superhero titles, is a master of the genre.

Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment

I’ve never really been a big fan of Doctor Strange. Not because I dislike the character but because I’ve never really read one of his solo stories until Doctor Strange: The Oath. Before that I’ve only ever read stories with Doctor Strange in them as a guest star or as a supporting character. Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment is written by long time Doctor Strange writer, Roger Stern. It’s drawn by Mike Mignola and inked and coloured by Mark Badger. It’s also the best Doctor Strange story I’ve ever read (ok, I know this isn’t saying much considering the beginning of this paragraph). Once every year, Doctor Doom travels to hell and fights for his mother’s soul. Each year his battle ends in a stalemate. Triumph and Torment tells the story of the latest attempt by Doom to win back his mother’s soul. Doom, through an interesting series of events I won’t spoil here, is able to join forces with a reluctant Doctor Strange and once again challenges Mephisto in his domain.

Despite being more of a Doctor Doom story, Triumph and Torment is an excellent comic through and through. There is a theatricality to the comic that elevates it to the status of modern classic. Stern’s moving and often philosophical story also helps with this. The biggest highlight though is the artwork. I wish comics had art like that nowadays. The line work by Mike Mignola is very different to his work on Hellboy. I think the primary cause for the difference in art this early on in Mignola’s career is Mark Badger’s contribution as inker. The colouring, also by Badger, is simply beautiful. It adds so much depth to the comic that I doubt it would work as well without it. I love everything about this story. IT’s so rare to see a creative team firing on all cylinders while also having their individual contributions coalesce into a single work, a single vision.  

Despite being more of a Doctor Doom story, Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment, is an excellent comic through and through. I’ve read this comic twice since its release and I plan on doing so again sometime soon because there is so much to love. It’s also convinced me to track down some more Doctor Strange comics. Luckily for me, this collection also includes three more Doctor Strange stories form the 1970s and 1980s which provide additional context to the main story after which this collection is named.

JLA Classified: New Maps of Hell review

JLA Classified collects issues # 10-15, is written by Warren Ellis and drawn by Butch Guice (or perhaps not, my trade paperback credits the art to Jackson Guice; is it the same person?). There isn’t a whole lot worth mentioning about New Maps of Hell. At its most basic, it is a story of the JLA encountering an evil force and after some fighting, defeats the evil. Instead of concentrating all the parts of the comic I’ll stick to the more interesting and successful (well, not always) aspects of the story.

Ellis sets the tone of his version of the DCU in the first four pages. A man wishes to jump off a building to commit suicide. He says he wants to be one of the suicide jumpers Superman doesn’t catch. In the next page he jumps and falls. In the third page he falls on top of a car. The fourth page we jump to Superman who says: “Dammit.” To which Lois Lane replies “You can’t catch them all, Smallville.” It’s important to mention that the man jumped at night and when we see Superman on the fourth page it is daytime. I interpreted this as a second suicide jumper or another event in which someone gets injured or killed and Superman wasn’t able to help. This is not a Metropolis where Superman can or will save everyone. Because of his super senses he is forced to witness all the crimes in Metropolis.

That’s ok though because Superman isn’t Batman. Something like that would drive Batman insane but only Batman, Superman doesn’t have a war on Crime. He simply helps out. He helps wherever he goes but he doesn’t lose him mind trying to solve all of the world’s problems. It reminds me somewhat of Grant Morrison’s take on Superman where he acts as an example for humanity to save themselves. He won’t solve all the world’s problems himself for fear of taking away humanity’s individuality and freedom and end up being something like a dictator (find another word for dictator). Ellis doesn’t seem to want to go so far with his take on Superman. He seems to want to acknowledge that Superman logistically can’t be everywhere despite his superpowers. Superman does have to learn to live with that undeniable truth, though.

Ellis adds other revisionist twists, most specifically with the powers of the members of the Justice League. Ellis doesn’t provide realist updates of all of the members; he chooses instead to concentrate on a few of them, notably on the Flash.

Batman has scars but so does the Flash. His body is not riddled with them such as it is with Batman but he has at least one large scar which serves as a reminder of how he got his powers. It’s as if back when he was just a regular human he was able to be scared. Now that he’s a superhuman the only scars he has are those that were present before his transformation. That would explain why people like Wonder Woman, Superman, and J’onn J’onzz who have been thrown through countless walls and windows bear/bare no scars. They’re superhuman and that serves as a good enough explanation. It’s not the case for Batman. He’s very much human and his scars have been shown in many comics by many different artists. It brings us to Green Lantern. His ring shields him. I’m sure when he gets hit and thrown towards a mountain his will is cleary telling his ring to protect him, much like a regular person would life up their arms to protect themselves from a physical blow. He’s got no scars because his super weapon protects him. In short it’s a neat little update for Flash that doesn’t drastically change his character but redefines in an interesting and effective way.

Ellis allows concentrates a lot on Flash’s super powers. He has to be conscious of the effects of his superspeed on the people and things around him. He desmonstrates this in the use of caption boxes: “Four steps and I need to slow down now, or else the bow wave from a dead stop will explode Linda’s internal organs when I pause to –”.

I imagine Superman and other super strong characters have to constantly keep their strength in check while interacting with people and objects around them but Flash has to do that as well. For a character such as Wally West you get a sense that he has a lot of restraint when it comes to the use of his powers and it sheds new light on his as a hero. He has to be conscious of the effects his presence has on his surroundings at the cost of being the cause of more destruction as opposed to the help he is there to offer.  

Jackson (or Butch) Guice draws Lois like a super model. That’s not a problem in itself but he also dresses her like a model from a magazine advertisement. For crying out loud, her blouse doesn’t even cover her midsection! Does the Daily Planet even have a dress code?

In opposition to Lois, Guice draws Wonder Woman in a relaxed version of her iconic swimsuit costume. She looks more comfortable wearing her off-duty clothes. It seems like a good choice of clothing for her while on Themyscira due to what can only be near tropical weather. Where is Themyscira anyway? In the middle of the Greek Islands?

As a complete package, JLA Classified: New Maps of Hell is peppered with sharp dialogue courtesy of Warren Ellis. Guice’s artwork does a good show of showing off Ellis’s interesting realist updates on old characters effectively. Unfortunately his inspired idea for Wonder Woman’s costume is opposed by Lois showing off extra skin while at work. I’m not entirely sure if Guice was inspired by another artist for Diana’s off duty look but he pulls it off very well here. It’s not at all an essential Justice League story, if anything its quite disposable, but it’s a disposable story but two professional comics creators and it makes for an enjoyable read, if somewhat lacking in substance beyond a few interesting ideas not directly related to the story being told.